Go-to-Market

Defining a unifying GTM vision and structuring corresponding plans that seek to achieve that vision is the essential starting point for driving growth at scale. The primary business functions that align with GTM – Marketing and Sales – comprise the revenue growth engine for the business. The viability of the GTM strategy, and the degree to which it creates competitive differentiation and advantage, profitable growth, and a manageable risk profile, has profound implications for the success and longevity of the business overall.

• Do our GTM-centric functions share a common vision about our core objectives, priorities, and paths to market?
• Have we adequately defined, quantified, and logically prioritized our objectives, or are we attempting to pursue everything at once?
• What is the opportunity cost of misaligned strategies across our GTM-centric functions?
• Is there a defined customer experience strategy in place, and how effective are existing CX-centric efforts at driving targeted outcomes?
• Are we adequately capturing the market opportunity from our indirect channel, and if not, what can we do to amplify scale effects?
• How accurate are our TAM and revenue forecasts, and what are the implications of inaccuracy?
• Are existing measurements (metrics, KPIs) effective at driving actionable insight and targeted business results, or are there notable gaps and improvement opportunities?

The essence of programmatic GTM is structuring and managing a diversified yet targeted portfolio of market-facing activities in a coordinated cadence across multiple interdependent entities. The programmatic activities include marketing campaigns, sales motions, and integrated GTM programs, while the entities involved include both internal GTM functions and the corresponding functions within external partner organizations. The portfolio approach draws lessons from investment management, by creating a curated set of programmatic activities that together yield a weighted-average return, but that can be discretely managed, measured, and rebalanced as necessary.

• Does our current set of GTM programs lend itself to a portfolio-centric approach, and what would be the benefits of us adopting such an approach? 
• To what degree do our current GTM programs orchestrate coordinated activities across internal business functions? 
• To what degree are our external partners integrated into our GTM program strategies and mechanisms, and what would be the benefit of more expansive and effective integration? 
• Do we purposefully take a “test and learn” approach to experimenting with and assessing our programmatic activities? 
• What is the opportunity cost of misaligned market-facing activities across our GTM-centric functions?  
• Do our GTM programs incorporate post-sale activities (e.g., delivery, customer support) and CX considerations? 
• How do we strike the right balance between program volume, program efficacy, and capacity to deliver GTM programs?

It has become common practice for customers to have already conducted extensive research into a company’s market offerings long before they engage with the company’s sellers. As a result, customers are either far along in formulating their perspectives before they “raise their hands” to identify themselves to the business, or they have drawn their conclusions and decided to not further engage at all. This dynamic exists in both B2C and B2B markets and elevates the importance of effective product and solution marketing. Formulating and delivering highly relevant and segmented value propositions that are compelling, using channels and tactics that align with customers’ behavior and preferences, and applying strategies and technologies that orchestrate the customer journey before, during, and even after the purchase event are critical factors for driving success.

• Have our customer segmentation efforts accurately and holistically identified the relevant segments, sub-segments, and corresponding needs? 
• How can we increase the effectiveness of our value propositions at driving customer engagement that leads to conversion and maximizes customer lifetime value? 
• What are the most effective ways to align our GTM strategy, messaging, content marketing tactics, and technology enablers to accelerate customers’ initial progression through the funnel and orchestrate customer engagement across the extended customer journey?

Professionals in field roles – Field Marketing, Pre-Sales, Business Development, Field Sales, and other customer-facing sales functions – represent the face of the entire business to the customer. They actively shape and deliver the messages and offers that capture the customer’s interest, drive the customer dialogue across the sales cycle, and convert leads into revenue. And their work doesn’t end there… they also play an outsized role in shaping the entire customer experience, increasing customer retention and creating additional revenue streams from renewals, cross-selling, and up-selling. Building and sustaining high-performing field operations is essential to the success of the business overall. To maintain a competitive edge, businesses must foster field understanding of and alignment with the GTM strategy, empower field professionals with the methodologies and resources they need to maximize their effectiveness, and utilize tactics that drive continuous improvement in operating performance.

• How can we ensure that field professionals not only understand the GTM strategy, but also align their everyday activities with it? 
• What practical approaches can we take to drive effective and efficient collaboration across the marketing funnel and sales cycle? 
• How can we strike the right balance between training, account planning, and customer-facing time in the seller’s work routine? 
• What steps can we take to make our account planning more effective? 
• How can we most effectively measure the impact of our GTM strategy and our field teams’ contributions to it?

Partners expand the reach of a business by bringing their own capabilities, capacity, and customer relationships to the equation. They help the business differentiate its value proposition from competitors, access new customer segments and markets, introduce new methodologies for product development and GTM, create scale effects, and deliver what was sold. Systematically conceptualizing, building, and managing a partner ecosystem is an essential component of an advanced GTM strategy. But partners have many options for engaging with businesses across the value chain. Merely forging a partnership agreement doesn’t guarantee meaningful engagement, mutual commitment, or tangible success.

• Which partners can not only logically complement our customer value proposition, but also extend and differentiate it? 
• How can certain partners help us access customers that we would otherwise have great difficulty in reaching? 
• What constructs can we put in place to mesh with partners in terms of strategic objectives, market offerings, and GTM mechanics?  
• How can our business stand out from other businesses that our target partners currently count as their partners? 
• Are there creative and innovative incentive constructs that we have not yet considered or deployed to accelerate our indirect channel growth objectives?